little vases

My journey in ceramics of the last few years has come to an exciting point this week, I've started adding my little vases to my Etsy shop. I didn't want to sell any ceramics until they were perfect in my eyes and something I wanted to share with the world.

To see my vases and buy one of your own you can go to the ceramics section of my Flowerpress Etsy Shop.

For those of you who follow my craft wanderings you will know that its been a while now since my first steps in this craft (how funny are those lumpy first pots!). I've been practicing and learning this skill since 2013, an itch I'd been wanting to scratch for ages.

The impetus was a blog story about a working ceramicist. I loved watching the process of her work and as my crafting has always been about making beautiful pieces to live with everyday, the idea of crafting my own ceramic pieces just seemed like a wonderful thing to work towards.

And it is, I love it!

What I didn't know when I started that process was that ceramics has a hugely steep learning curve. Much of it is complex and can only be learnt slowly by trial and failure. I went into it at a sprint, only to learn it is a marathon.

I like that too. I like the idea that the skills are hard won, my appreciation of ceramic work has grown so much as I explore all the processes involved.

Throwing on a wheel is hard. I'm often reminded of the idea that 10,000 hours of practice brings mastery in a skill. I'm slowly whittling away at that number, and enjoying it more as my skills increase.

It feels good to have earned a modest skill at throwing pots. It feels hard won.

the little things

This is the view from the bed in the holiday house in Bundeena we stayed in last week. Above all the backyard fences the trees stretched into the distance and the birds flew between them the whole time we were there. It was very peaceful.

We didn't stay long. Our girl starts her HSC exams on Monday and we didn't want to upset her study routine so we only snatched a tiny holiday away, within sight of the city spires over the water in the distance.

Its always so good to get away, to breathe some different air, to come together as our little family over boardgames, swims, walks and food. To talk, to play, to laugh.

And it was pure bliss to be among the wildflowers at this exact time of year as they burst into beautiful flower. It reminded me of the wonderful holiday we had this time of year in the Blue Mountains five years ago when all our walks were garlanded with beautiful native blooms. (How I love being able to look back quickly through this blog and find those photos and be transported to that time.)

These are taken on the most beautiful bushwalk which leads to this surprise waterfall called Deer Pool in the Royal National Park. My camera stopped working 50 metres in, can you believe its broken again - I nearly cried, but I managed to use my phone and J's camera to take some photos.

It's been a funny scratchy year this one. I haven't quite found my creative rhythm, or any sort of rhythm really, and here we are in October!

On the day we took this walk we learnt our friend had lost her battle with cancer. An especially heartbreaking battle for someone so young.

This morning I went to her funeral. It was so sad but it was also a celebration in many ways, a celebration of her life and courage. She never gave up her fight, and never let the disease change who she was. She was brave and courageous to the very end. And she and her husband were simply awe inspiring in their support and love for each other.

It reminded me, like everyone there I'm sure, of how lucky we are to have this life. How lucky to have these people. I resolved again to stop worrying the bad things, the scratchy things and to keep focussing on the good and beautiful things. The little things like wildflowers in spring. And making, which I have been neglecting, but which I need more of in my life.

renovation

Guess what! We signed a contract with the builder last week for renovation work on the back of our house. We are going to extend our tiny kitchen and dining room and add a big deck off the back where we now have a tiny one. Underneath will be a big extra space.

It was going to start yesterday, but luckily we have had a reprieve and get to keep the back of the house for another week! I'm dying for it all to start but also dying for the extra time to get organised. We're living on site during the work and will lose our kitchen for most of the time and though I'm not sure how that's going to go it sounds like a challenge!

We have been working on the plans and council approval for a couple of years now, doing it with a friend of ours who is an architect. He's been busy, we've been busy, and we've dragged it out a bit - putting off the disruption and expense. But now its finally happening!

Last week the plumber moved the sewer pipes to make way for the excavation. To save money and time we dug a lot of the holes ourselves, all five of us had a go. One minute we had lawn and garden and the next minute there were holes and pipes. My lovely planter boxes  were dismantled and three self sown trees which had put themselves in the wrong spot had to go. Luckily all the trees we've planted are okay, so the bones of the garden will still be there. But the beautiful side garden has been cut back hard in preparation for access so diggers and building materials can come along there.

I've been feeling a bit sentimental for our garden as it was. It's going to change a lot, levels will change and the low wall and stairs and pond we built will most probably go. Plants have been pulled out, pavers stacked and gravel dug up and put in bags in preparation. So here are some before shots, some garden pics I came across while looking through my photos for something else. I love this garden, and I will miss its present incarnation, but I'm looking forward to the next.

My gardens have always been works in progress, I think all good gardens are. They grow and change like children and we can't hang on, but just enjoy the ride. When one plant dies I look at it as a chance to plant something new and different, when a tree plants itself in the middle of a sunny bed we've changed to shade loving plants, and when a plant doesn't look right or doesn't thrive it is unceremoniously uprooted and moved or composted. I learnt to do that from my mother in law :-)

We will always have trees and paths and water. There will always be vegetable beds. I'm looking forward to rearranging things when the dust settles.  My only frustration is this beautiful spring weather, it seems criminal to be moving plants and not sowing seed at this time of year!!!

I hope to show some before, during and (especially) after photos. I always love to watch those sort of transformations and have long been a fan of Grand Designs. Ours won't be so grand and we're hoping to bypass some of the drama and delays of some of their shows but it will be a big change in the spaces we have.

2013

And there goes 2013, just like that!

Actually mentally I'm still in 2013, and will be for a while. I'm still on holidays and have some lovely family camping in my future, hooray. 2014 can cool its heels a moment while I recharge.

An annual tradition round here is this end of year post when I go through my Flickr pages and compile a mosaic or two of my creative life for the year. {and if you're interested here's 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008}

Its always a nice surprise to see how busy and productive I've been despite sometimes feeling like I'm getting nowhere and taking too long about it!!

This year is no exception. It was big! Some great important things happened this year and I learnt a lot.

My work was featured in The Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum Design section.

I taught my first craft workshops at SewMakeCreate.

I did a ceramics course and learnt to throw pots. A new addiction this and I'm already signed up for more in 2014.

I learnt to Shibori, expose my own screens and make coiled brooches at workshops run by other people. It was fun! I tried embroidery. Here's to more learning this year too.

I cooked and ate a lot. A brief flirtation with the 5:2 diet and an increasing dislike for processed food saw me make my own pickles, jam, marmalade, yoghurt, ricotta, paneer, bread, soup, curries, pastries, pizza, dolmades, soap and lots of cake. I also grew more of my own produce, which made me very happy.

I printed lots of fabric. So much that I didn't get round to showing it all on the blog. That's something to remedy in 2014, and sewing more with my flowerpress fabrics is another.

I sewed some more clothes for me, and I thought and read a lot about learning to adapt patterns to my particular shape. That's another thing I want to pursue further this year.

I dithered in my bloggings and was quiet for some of the year. I can see from the comparative number of posts that I wasn't as present here. However, the absence made me realise blogging's importance in my life. I hope to embrace it anew. This year I hope to be a more focussed and committed blogger. Another thing I really enjoyed this year was getting out and meeting more bloggers in person, both friends I've met through the blog and via ABCD meetups and the Voices 2013 competition. Bloggers are such lovely people and its nice to have a chance to catch up on all that stuff that you never talk get a chance to talk about in emails.

Do you have plans for 2014, I need a few more ideas for the year, and I'd love it if you wanted to share yours here. And Happy New Year!!!  Here's to 2014, but not just yet ;-)

home salad farm

A year or two ago I realised I really wanted to grow more vegies, I had the romantic idea of drifting around the garden each evening with a basket harvesting. At the time the few vegie plants I grew were squeezed into the rare vacant spots in the garden, but gave me lots of satisfaction. Luckily I love a mix and match garden and find vegies quite beautiful in their own right, to me they fit in between the ornamentals seamlessly, so we pulled some other stuff out and made new spaces.

Each season since then we have added and improved our vegie plots, eking a bit of sunny space here and there, and of course recently added our raised apple box planters. And one of the things our little inner city garden is best at is salad farming. We grow a wide range of salad ingredients now as you can see from the pic at the top.

Quick salad crops fit in well around our long summer holiday when the garden has to fend for itself and don't hog large parts of garden real estate for extended periods. And they fill that hungry gap between winter and summer crops quickly.

 

Also we eat salad five or six times a week, so its cost saving as well, unlike some crops I've grown before only to find a cheap glut of at the greengrocer when I'm harvesting my own.

It goes without saying that salad is a million times better with fresh produce, because its raw you can taste its wonderful freshness in every bite.

Did you know that leafy plants grow well in semi shade, if it fruits or roots it needs sun but many leafy plants will thrive in that shady spot in your garden, that's something I learned. And most of these plants will grow in pots happily too if you don't have available beds.

I'm no expert, I'm still learning vegie growing, but I'm a fan, and here's my thoughts on what I'm growing:

Lettuce
I think Cos lettuce is hard to grow well. It doesn't like leaf harvesting and often bolts to seed in our garden. Mesclun types like oak leaf, mignonette and butter lettuces on the other hand are real cut and come again heroes. And they look so pretty mixed together. I grow these from seed planted direct though I recently read they won't germinate in hotter conditions. This year I've been collecting my own seeds from plants allowed to go to seed, but an easy way to get new types is a mixed punnet from the local garden centre.

Rocket/Aragula
I found out this year that there are actually two types of rocket. The large leafed annual rocket and the smaller leafed perennial wild rocket. If you're not sure which type you have, salad has white flowers and larger leaves, and wild rocket yellow flowers and small serated leaves. This is my first year with wild and I will be interested to see how well the plants last. I usually make repeat sowings of the salad rocket as it bolts to seed quickly, and I do love its pretty flowers.

Peas and beans
I love purple beans for the decorative splash they bring the garden. Scarlet runner beans have great red flowers. Peas are hit and miss for me, but the plants I have in this year, from a few sowings, are looking good. Broad beans were a new crop last year and fresh broad (fava) beans are a revelation. They have none of the bitterness of bought pods and I pop them fresh into the salad as they are or steam them for a couple of minutes to soften. Delicious, I promise. Sow seed at the end of winter for a spring harvest.

Chard, Spinach, Kale
Chard is the ultimate backyard plant. A few plants give continuously for months and I use the small leaves in salads and the larger leaves in canneloni and quiches. Just recently I added kale to my repertoire and I love the ornamental qualities these plants have, and rumour has it they a superfood. They also grow forever. Baby spinach is delicious in salads, full of vitamins and the plants are a lovely splash of green.

Sorrel
A new addition to my salads this year is the beautiful red veined sorrel gifted to me as seedlings. It is such a pretty plant and the slightly lemony salad leaves are a lovely addition to the leaf mix.

Cabbage
Another gifted seedling, I love the colour of my purple cabbage plants, I've been harvesting young leaves and slicing them up before adding their slight crunch to the salad. Fingers crossed they make a head soon and I can have homegrown coleslaw!

 

Herbs
Coriander is another bolter which is remedied by repeat plantings. The seeds are quick to come up and the small plants can just be sown in any available gaps. Basil we cheat and grow from one cheap punnet bought early in the season in its own dedicated pot, so pretty. Its a great addition to onion, tomato, fetta salads when we're out of lettuce. Mint is another great addition and freshens any salad. Nasturtium doesn't quite qualify as a herb but its peppery bite is a great addition.

Beetroot
I'm using the tiniest baby beet leaves in my salads and also grating in fully grown raw beetroot into salad or roasting them with a slick of olive oil.

Tomatoes
After a few disappointing years trying to grow full size tomatoes, I've resigned myself quite happily to the realisation that in Sydney, with our fruit fly problems, small cherry or grape tomato plants are the safest and happiest in our garden. I like the way they keep a ready ongoing crop too, so you always have a couple of tomatoes when you need them. The tiny red tomatoes in my photo are from a plant that survived winter in a very protected spot against a north facing wall and is still producing. My other favourite is the yellow pear variety which is very prolific and has a long season, so long in fact I used it to make green tomato pickles last winter!

 

Radishes and carrots
The quickest crops, and a great splash of colour when sliced through your salad. Plant in repeat batches so you always have some on hand.

Spring Onions
The spring onions in the top picture were actually regrown from cut off rooted ends from purchased spring onions. I'd read about this online and to my great pleasure it works. Just cut an inch off and poke them into the soil then harvest the green ends for cut and come again.

One other piece of advice I came across this year and have taken to heart is to plant something each week. Formerly I would have brief periods of action when I bought and planted everything at once. With this new method I am filling gaps as I go, after harvesting another crop, or if seed haven't come up or have failed to grow.

p.s. Aren't these vegie photos on Kate's blog beautiful.

springing

Its funny, I started writing this spring post yesterday and today there is a real chill in the air, its freezing! I think I might have been counting my chickens a little early!

Despite that the jasmine buds are massing and I've been brave enough to plant some spring seeds, hoping to get a jump on the vegie garden this season.

How about you? Any spring cleaning urges yet? Or are you pulling those woollies out of storage for autumn?

apple boxes

Last week my bloke and I skived off work for a road trip to Camden, we were picking up a couple of old apple boxes to convert into raised vegie beds. We'd been waiting for a local garden supplies place to get new stock of these, but in the end bought them straight from the grower.

On the way back we drove through Mount Annan Botanic Gardens where I photographed this striking blue tree. Its a lovely big bushland setting with stands of different tree species. Unfortunately we had the dog with us and couldn't get out for a wander, next time.

You may remember we put some vegie beds down the back of the garden last year. While they started off well they have recently struggled with the number of tree roots in the area so we're hoping that raising them up like this will get them more sun and less competition to their roots. Its also nice to have them raised for easy access, and don't they look nice!

I've showed some of the process, we lined them with weedmat and filled the bases with recycled polystyrene to cut down on the weight and the amount of soil used. Then we filled them with a compost mix from the local nursery. I say we but it was mostly done by the boy crew, Miss A and I were out so missed most of the heavy work. The worm towers were reinstalled for easy composting. I'm hoping these work better in the new situatuion too.

The surviving vegies were transferred to their new spot and are so far thriving. These include some stunted rainbow chard, four broad bean seedlings, eight small broccoli plants and four pea plants. None were very happy and it will be interesting to see if they continue to do well in the new beds.

I have a few winter vegies still going, a couple of healthy kales, some broad beans and beetroot grown from seed and some cherry tomatoes which have held on in their sunny side spot through this mild winter. Last weekend it certainly felt like spring and the heralds of the new season, the wattle, the magnolias, the jasmine, the daphne, the jonquils are all out in force.